As I am sitting in the GP surgery listening to the instrumental 'jazz' versions of modern songs, typically heard in the Coop supermarket, I am reading a magazine article about best friends and the extent that they have gone to to support their mates. One woman has donated her eggs to her pal who couldn't conceive, one has saved another's daughter from a freak accident, and another has left her job to care for her best friend while she is debilitated by a severe illness. My eyes welling up, I am fighting back the tears so as not to appear like a fool in front of the whole waiting room, but I begin to realise that I have become an emotional wreck of late.Mood swings are understatement of the week, and the tantrums my daughter has been having so clearly originate from me! Swinging off the handle at the slightest of things. The poor sales rep who phoned one evening to try and convince me that I needed life insurance must not have known what hit him, as I started ranting that this had been the fifth phone call of the evening from reps like himself, that it was 2030pm therefore it was wholly inappropriate to be ringing anyway, and that if I wanted life insurance - which actually I do eventually - I would be investigating the market myself anyhow. Of course having been trained well he mustered up a faint 'sorry to have bothered you' and 'thank you for your time', before hanging up and prompting a huge wave of guilt to sweep through me.
And before you say it, I am not pregnant. Although I have no idea what in gods name my hormones are doing these days I can at least be assured I am not about to go through another 9 months of misery and no sleep. I seem to be having an everlasting menstrual period, for almost a month now, teamed with its Pre-menstrual tension, Menstrual tension and Post-menstrual tension to boot. This is unfortunate for D as he now often comes home to me storming about the place with a face on and a voice like thunder, making him feel the need to turn and run like a bat out of hell! And poor Ali is so confused because one minute I am smiling and laughing with her; then I am in tears and shes saying 'don't be sad mammy' while cuddling me; then I am furious and shouting for some reason or another; which is sharply followed by the unresponsive me who is just sick of this roller coaster and fed up with having to fight all the time to try and make things better, only to be knocked down at every hurdle, despite every effort that is being made!
You have not heard from me for a while and quite possibly you are now wishing I hadn't started writing again. I tried to blame it on writers block! The truth of it is that I have been on so many emotional highs and lows recently that those who don't know me probably would have questioned whether I was on drugs. Although not physically worn out, mental deliberating and anxiety has exhausted my mind, to the point where on an evening I sit mind-numbed either staring and some rubbish on TV that I am not really watching, or I drink profusely and pretend to do something on the computer.
Sometimes its not even major issues that have me so mad. It is the little things that grate on me on a daily basis, but they don't seem to bother D so it is so hard to make him understand. For example; I am coming home from work it has been a shitty, stressful day as per usual and it is freezing, windy and raining. The back windscreen wiper on my car still doesn't work as I have not been able to get it to the garage yet, it also needs a service and keeps stalling and wont go into reverse gear without a bicep work out (no not even I am that bad at driving, it is the car!). When I eventually get home having picked Ali up from the childminders, during which we have a battle while trying to get her strapped into her car seat; I nearly snap my neck twisting round trying to reverse into the car parking space (when eventually the car decides to let me put it into reverse), and when we get in the house it is bloody freezing because the fire has not been on all day and we don't have gas central heating! I return to pick up the bags from the porch where I dropped them all as I caught my leg on the pedal of the bike that stands in the way there, (because it has no where else to go), prompting a whole array of colourful language to try and say quietly in an attempt to bring up my daughter correctly. Once troops and baggage are safely inside I start the fire leaving all coats in situ until it at least warms the living room a touch. Incidentally the fire decides it doesn't really want to go so I sit for half and hour holding a piece of newspaper across the front to try and force it to. Once again Ali requests Cbeebies on the TV, so a background noise of annoying songs and characters ensues, while I feel terribly guilty for having used the TV as a babysitter for almost every day that week, so much so that we have seen all the episodes which are broadcast and could probably recite them. Losing count of how many times Ali has said 'mammy' since we arrived home I retreat into the kitchen to try and start a meal for myself and D, and rapidly put the oven on to warm up the kitchen, even though I only need the rings! While trying to set the tumble dryer going (because we don't have enough rooms to use radiators), I forget that the door has been hanging on for its life and manage to rip the whole thing off - luckily it still goes if you force it back on - and Ali is telling me she doesn't like her furry slippers and promptly walks around barefoot as she has removed her socks telling me they are dirty. I try to explain to her it is too cold not to have anything on her feet while putting the slippers back on, and re-placing her into the living room where it is warmest and wiping the stream of snot from her nose. When eventually the coats have come off and I go to hang them up in the front porch, it quickly comes to light that a small flood has come through the ceiling - a regular event in bad weather - which requires a few towels and rapid rearranging of the contents of this area. I go to place Ali's pyjamas on the radiator to warm and immediately change my mind as I see the various items of clothing that have become stuck behind it which I have been unable to retrieve due to the overhang of the windowsill. I instead opt for the fireguard thinking I have moved it far enough back so as not to mark them, however on return they have already started to singe. The cats are fighting in the background too now as the little male cat is getting horny already and continues to pounce on the female cats bottom, so I bellow at them until my throat hurts and then decide the only action which will solve the problem is to separate them. Difficult when there is such a lack of rooms. Out into the rain for some coal for the fire, passing the mountain of ironing in the utility which is enough to make anyone cry, there appears to be another dead rodent of some kind on the mat in the back porch with all its organs carefully layed out, proving that actually the female cat is most definitely a surgeon. Having cleared this up I can only look at the un-started tea and pile of dishes from that morning still in the sink as D pulls up the drive to join the chaos and frustratingly he glides his even longer car into the spot behind mind. When he tuts at the kitchen as if I have done nothing, I have to keep my hands in my non-existent pockets to prevent myself from punching his lights out and following a small protest that I have been trying to do them but have had a few distractions, I retreat into the living room feeling a total failure as a 'housewife' and mother while he bangs and crashes through the mess as if to make a point. This is not a one off kind of occurrence, this is almost every night of the week! Enough said?So just in case you haven't heard enough of my moaning yet, you can believe my utter horror when we have the first offer on our house in like what seems like a million years, only to find out it is £20000 less than the asking price, £30000 less than it was originally placed on the market for. After initially refusing this offer in the hope they might come back to us with a little more we decided to visit our local mortgage advisor who was resident within an estate agent himself. The brunt of his advice was that if the market continues to plummet we may not even get that offer again, losing out even more. Is this not what I have been saying for about the past year??? So finally David convinced that we may need to cut and run now, as continuing with the loft conversion may lead to negative equity, we decide to get back in touch with the couple who made the offer to say we would except if it was £5000 extra. Too f****** late! They have already ploughed ahead with an offer on another property, but if its any consolation they would be interested should there be any problems with this chain. There aren't enough stars in the world to illustrate how I felt about this.
Back to square one, I have made a positive decision to try and stop dwelling on all this shit as it is really beginning to effect my personality, and everyone is sick to the core of me whingeing on about the whole sorry situation. So this is my, not so little, rant about the recent crap, and now I will try to rebuild and embrace the once very, 'smiley', 'upbeat' Jen who I have not seen of late!
